of? What can keep the mind in stagnation? Yet think of a spirit fettered down, and toiling and wearing away the very principle of life. Helen, I feel that I am getting low; and that this confinement, with this cold, low tone of encouragement, that is worse than the extinction of all hope, are hurrying me downward very fast. I pray you, prepare yourself for the worst. God knows, it may come, for my system is in a terrible struggle with nature, and the spirit of life is too weak to hold out long in this way.

"But I seem to think and talk wholly of myself. And now how fares it with you, Helen? How is our home? and our friends, how are they? and your letters, where are they? I have had no word for months from you-and I here, upon this weary bed, heaving and panting! Oh! this wide sea! this wide sea! But I must break off again; my pen drops; I am exhausted. Once more, Helen, as you love me, let me conjure you to be calm. There is a high duty upon us.

"Yesterday the physician said something about hope, but he shook his head as he said it, and I feel something here that he cannot fathom. Am I to feel it much longer? Then God bless you, God bless you, and preserve you, for I can do it no

longer! I think I know my situation-but I am as weak as death-I cannot trace my words. home! home! our home! and our young love! how soon it is cut off! But tell them our flag was not dishonoured-and-remember, Helen--but my wound bleeds afresh."

Julia stopped. She thought it was enough. There were a few words more, but she hardly dared to read them. During this time she had continued standing by the side of her afflicted friend; and, as she closed, she glanced her eye over the top of the letter to mark its effect upon her. She sat perfectly collected and motionless; but an indescribable expression of deep-settled sorrow had passed into her face, and a look of utter abandonment was there, mingled with a loveliness so subdued and so tender, that it melted the heart to see it. The paper had fallen, and lay upon the floor, at her side. A shade of singular resignation was thrown over her countenance by the simple arrangement about her head; a white robe enveloped her shrinking figure, and a beautiful mantle, over that, was drawn in folds about her. Her hands lay meekly crossed in her lap, and her feet sat lifelessly forward upon the floor, as though they had long ago forgotten their office of support.

Her lips moved not during the recital; her eye gleamed not with a single tear, but fixed itself in stedfast gaze upon the air, as though her soul had already taken wing for the land of spirits.

As Julia finished, she seemed to be roused from her reverie.

66

"Is it all, Julia ?" said she, slowly, and in a tone scarcely audible, as she looked up-" is it all? read it all-all-I am prepared now for every thing. Did he not tell me to be calm ?--readread"-and at once, she sobbed as if overpowered and suffocated.

Julia sat by her, and read the postscript. It was from a friend of Kirkwood, who thus performed his dying request, in relating the circumstances of his death, and forwarding the letter. He had not disgraced his flag, and he died as became a man and a Christian.

As she closed, Helen bowed, as with some terrible oppression, upon the bosom of her friend. As she once more faintly raised her head, her eye fell on the portrait of him she had so fervently loved. It fixed there a moment-and, ere Julia was aware, she fell back lifeless upon her arm. Her heart was broken.

UNWRITTEN PHILOSOPHY.

Nature there

Was with thee; she who loved us both, she still
Was with thee; and even so didst thou become
A silent poet; from the solitude

Of the vast sea didst bring a watchful heart

Still couchant, an inevitable ear,

And an eye practised like a blind man's touch.

Wordsworth.

A SUMMER or two since, I was wasting a college vacation among the beautiful creeks and falls in the neighbourhood of New York. In the course of my wanderings, up stream and down stream, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, and never without a book, for an excuse to loiter on the mossy banks, and beside the edge of running water, I met frequently a young man of a peculiarly still and collected-eye, and a forehead more like a broad slab of marble, than a human brow. His mouth

was small and thinly cut; his chin had no superfluous flesh upon it; and his whole appearance was that of a man, whose intellectual nature prevailed over the animal. He was evidently a scholar. We had met so frequently at last, that, on passing each other one delicious morning, we bowed and smiled simultaneously, and, without further introduction, entered into conversation.

It was a temperate day in August, with a clear but not oppressive sun, and we wandered down a long creek together, mineralizing here, botanizing there, and examining the strata of the ravines, with that sort of instinctive certainty of each other's attainments, which scholars always feel, and thrusting in many a little wayside parenthesis, explanatory of each other's history and circumstances. I found that he was one of those pure and unambitious men, who, by close application and moderate living while in college, become in love with their books; and, caring little for any thing more than the subsistence, which philosophy tells them is enough to have of this world, settle down for life into a wicker-bottomed chair, more contentedly than if it were the cushion of a throne.

We were together three or four days, and when I left him, he gave me his direction, and promised to write to me. I shall give below an extract from one of his letters. I had asked him for a history